Awana Bucks

[Commander Jon]

Perhaps this exists and I just can't find it.

I see grids and a report for printing points for use in store and such, but I don't see where a "conversion factor" can be entered.  I know clubs, including ours, don't use a 1 point = 1 share system.  Being able to enter 1 point = X shares would be helpful.

Jonathan

[Rick Leffler]

That conversion factor feature doesn't exist. 

I wonder how many clubs are still using shares or bucks?  I know that many have stopped using the play money in favor of just tracking points. (The points are then used for store night.)  Using points instead of shares/bucks has some advantages, for example:
  1. It is free (no paper money to buy or make) and
  2. It is a lot less hassle trying to keep up with the shares/bucks and what to do if kids forget to bring their bucks on store night, or they lose them, or if they're stolen etc. To address these issues I've heard some clubs actually store the bucks for the clubbers. In my opinion that's not teaching any life lesson of responsibility and it only adds to the burden of the leaders/secretary to track and store and hand out the play money. 
  3. Using points saves time and is more accurate because all of the calculations are done automatically by the system through the normal course of recordkeeping.

[Jeff Hoch]

We still use Awana Bucks for our Sparky age group.  We find that the physical / tangible reward works better than telling them they have points for this age group. Last club year I worked around this situation to still have the database keep track with points by giving clubbers 1 point + 1 buck and then assigning points using the set-up to different actions equal to the bucks awarded.  This means that if the clubber looses their bucks we know how many the would have. It also allowed us to know if a clubber showed up to store with more bucks than they had earned.  This has happened in the past even among this age group.

[Eric Berry]

This year we gave the kids "debit cards", a card with 15 10's printed on it.  We took the points report and converted it into the debit cards.  So if a kid had 150 points, they got one card.  300 points got 2 cards.  250 points got 2 cards with 5 of the 10s crossed out on one of the cards.

This was soooo much better than counting out all of those Awana bucks but it still gave the kids tangible money to use.

[DavidCrow]

I wonder how many clubs are still using shares or bucks?  I know that many have stopped using the play money in favor of just tracking points.

Our club does.  We entertained the idea of points, but it removed a level of responsibility from the clubbers.  Also, since bucks can be handed out at various times throughout the night, using points instead would be next to impossible to track.

[millersrus96]

We still use the "points" as shares from the database. I used to combine "book, uniform, bible" = 1 share, now with the software we use 3 points and adjusted prices in the store to reflect "more shares to spend"  the store points report is the BEST!! My storekeeper loves this part of the database.    >>>>on other posts you mentioned iPad apps. . . . that would be a great app, a store tool, running on wifi, connected to my database. then they would "checkout" clubbers in real time to the database. . . . . i know a dream idea . . had a brainstorm, will post in other topic. . . .

[BOE]

Our club still uses the Awana shares. To be able to do that, we adjusted the point system so that 100 points = 1 share; an easy conversion . At the end of the year, I round up. Also, this allows the commander (and others to give out shares as rewards) without having to deal with this in the software.

[Rick Leffler]

BOE: Thank you for sharing your methods. I'm sure others will benefit from your knowledge!